A User's Manual for DELSOL3 - prod.sandia.gov - Sandia National ...
A User's Manual for DELSOL3 - prod.sandia.gov - Sandia National ...
A User's Manual for DELSOL3 - prod.sandia.gov - Sandia National ...
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A USER’S MANUAL FOR DELSOLS: A COMPUTER CODE FOR<br />
CALCULATING THE OPTICAL PERFORMANCE AND OPTIMAL SYSTEM<br />
DESIGN FOR SOLAR THERMAL CENTRAL RECEIVER PLANTS<br />
I. Introduction<br />
In central receiver systems, a large number of individually tracking mirrors,<br />
called heliostats, are used to concentrate sunlight on a receiver at the top of a<br />
tower. These systems have the potential to deliver thermal energy over a wide<br />
range of power levels and temperatures. Applications include central station elec-<br />
tric power generation, industrial process heat and <strong>prod</strong>uction of fuels and chem-<br />
icals. Analytical techniques <strong>for</strong> central receiver system design are required be-<br />
cause it is impractical to investigate experimentally the wide ranges of design and<br />
application alternatives <strong>for</strong> central receivers. Furthermore, the analysis must be<br />
computer based because of 1) the large number (i. e., thousands) of heliostats in<br />
many single system designs; 2) the strong time dependence of system per<strong>for</strong>mance<br />
due to the motion of the sun; and 3) the large number of options which have to<br />
be considered in optimal design. The DELSOL computer program was written to<br />
fill the need <strong>for</strong> an accurate, yet fast, easy to use and documented code <strong>for</strong> per-<br />
<strong>for</strong>mance and design applications. Version I, which analyzed large power electric<br />
applications, was released in August 1978. Version I1 improved and extended the<br />
capabilities of Version I. Version I1 can handle both large and small power sys-<br />
tems <strong>for</strong> electricity and process heat applications. The present Version I11 has<br />
been updated to incorporate more up-to-date cost defaults, new component cost<br />
and receiver loss relationships, more detailed parasitic loss calculations, and cor-<br />
rections to known errors in Version 11. The code consists of a detailed model of<br />
the optical per<strong>for</strong>mance, a simpler model of the non-optical per<strong>for</strong>mance, an al-<br />
gorithm <strong>for</strong> field layout, and a searching algorithm to find the best system design.<br />
The latter two features are coupled to a cost model of central receiver compo-<br />
nents and an economic model <strong>for</strong> calculating energy costs.<br />
Figure 1-1 indicates schematically how the components of DELSOL are used<br />
in the two general classes of application. In (A), a complete system design (which<br />
may have been previously optimized by DELSOL) is specified by the user, and<br />
the code calculates its per<strong>for</strong>mance. Typical applications include design point<br />
evaluation and analysis of experiments at test facilities. In (B), the heliostat de-<br />
sign, the range of system variables to be optimized, and the design constraints are<br />
specified by the user and the code calculates optimal designs <strong>for</strong> a range of power<br />
levels. Typical applications include system optimization and component design<br />
tradeoff studies.<br />
As an optical per<strong>for</strong>mance tool, DELSOL simulates the effects of cosine, shad-<br />
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